In China, groundwater is the main source of water, with it’s usage breakdown being 70% of drinking water supply, 38% of industrial water use, and 40% of agricultural irrigation water. This usage model, however, is highly prone to pollution, especially since China faces severe water shortages, frequent drought, and flood. To provide a solution, we use specialized E. coli DH5α with the ability to detect (using pET28a-chr-T7-amilCP E. coli) and degrade hexavalent chromium into trivalent chromium (using pSC101-ChrR, pSC101-YieF, pSC101-ChrR-YieF E. coli) to degrade Hexavalent Chromium aka Cr (VI) (a type of highly toxic soluable heavy metal ion) from water, subsequently reducing and breaking them down through the action of intracellular reductase enzymes. The bacteria we produce synthesizes proteins that transfer electrons to Cr(VI), producing Trivalent Chromium Cr(III). Cr(III) is significantly less toxic and carcinogous than Cr (VI). Our product also features a hardware system, the Microbial Remediator, which processes wastewater through four stages: initial detection, microbial degradation, chemical precipitation with NaOH, and final filtration, ultimately producing bacteria-free and Cr-free clean water.

Through our research, we aim to provide industries with the most sustainable solution against wastewater, contributing to the global trend of protecting the environment.

Certain firm’s industrial sewage contain an unacceptable amount of toxins, which result in the firms being unable to reach national standards of emissions and not being able to send sewage to centralized sewage treatment systems. This problem is present especially within manufacturing industries releasing heavy metals into clean water sources, one of such Chromium (Cr), which is closely tied to industries such as leather tanning, electroplating, synthetic rubber, and textile dyeing. with irreplaceable applications in covering a great portion of manufacturing industries. Recently, the Chinese government heightened the regulations regarding the discharge of water pollutants into the environment, increasing manufacturing industry with chemical waste’s need for an effect solution.

Mission: Our mission is to degrade Cr (VI) and other pollutants in water systems through sustainable and eco-friendly microbial remediation.

Vision: To minimize pollutants in waters, fostering a healthier future for everyone.

Addressing this issue will protect public health and ensure the sustainable use of water resources for industrial, agricultural, and domestic purposes.We use biological-degrading methods to directly turn Cr(VI) into Cr(III), reducing the harmful heavy metals in wastewater. These multiple types of bacteria are implemented in our hardware solution to treat wastewater in three stages: (1) initial detection, (2) microbial degradation, (3) chemical precipitation using NaOH and final filtration, resulting in clean, chromium-free water. Through our Microbial Remediator and bacteria, we can eliminate harmful Cr(VI) in wastewater, offering an eco-friendly treatment for water pollution, fostering a healthier environment for mankind.

Product

Our product is a cost-efficient, automated, and eco-friendly wastewater treatment system designed to remove all toxins from industrial sewage and allow the sewage to fulfill the national standards of emission (eg. the GB18918-2002 in China). The main product of our company is the Premium Leveled Microbial Remediator shown below.

Figure 1 Our Product

The main components of our the Premium Level Microbial Remediator include (from left to right) a rough filter and UV light to remove debris and pathogen, followed by a bacterial container with stirrer and heating pipes where specialized bacteria degrade contaminants. Water then passes through the precipitation center with pH indicator, and a sampling center, before being stored as purified water in a storage tank.

The Microbial Remediator processes wastewater in three steps. Wastewater first passes through a durable polypropylene filter to remove large wastes. UV light eliminates harmful pathogens, ensuring safe water for further treatment. After that, peristaltic pumps with silicone tubing transport water to the bacterial container (2m times 2 m times 2.5 meters), where engineered E. coli will degrade chromium. These bacteria, equipped with ChrR and YieF reductase genes, convert toxic Cr(VI) to less harmful Cr(III) under controlled temperature conditions. Customers could also add other specialized bacteria targeting contaminants like heavy metals, dyes, or nitrogen compounds. After pH adjustment in the precipitation center, purified water is stored in tanks for discharge. Equipped with integrated sensors for real time monitoring of pH, temperature, and chromium levels, Microbial Remediator ensures automated, low-cost operation.

The Microbial Remediator is also marked with high flexibility, allowing each customers to customize our product for better implementation into their operational sections. Specifically, customers may buy designated parts according to their own needs. Customers can buy Our E. coli Pack which contains all the materials detection bacteria (10mL) and degradation bacteria（1 L）along with a bag of NaOH (powder). This pack is designed to allow firms to manually detect and degrade Hexavalent Chromium, and only Hexavalent Chromium, by manually adding our E-coli and heating the sample to 36 Degrees Celsius, the optimum temperature. With the assumption of our customers sterilizing the water before and after using the E-coli, the E-coli pack can fulfill the demand our our customers independently. However, it is un-deniable that using the E-coli Pack alone is a complicated process requiring a high amount of labor and at the same time containing the risk of failing to degrade Chromium. Customers may buy the Premium-Level Microbial Remediator to reach higher efficiency and automation. If a firm already have 2 water tanks present for water storage, the Microbial Remediator could be customized to use their tanks and prices will decrease accordingly. Our Entry-Level Microbial Remediator, for instance, does not posess all 3 water tanks, chemical waste dumps, most tubes in the machine, control computer, water pumps, and filter membranes, assuming that our customers already posses these components. This product will be on-site installed into where our customer desires it to be and customized according to customer needs, which significantly increases our product’s flexibility.

1. Fixed Costs

The fixed cost used for building our factory and initiating our company accounts for 952545.3 RMB. That includes the construction and land conveyance fees, which accounts for a total of 842.5k. Fixed costs will increase by roughly 120% in the near future as we expand our company, use up more land, and increase production capacity.



Figure 2 Fixed Costs List



Figure 3



Figure 4 Break Even Analysis-1

2. Lab Variable Cost

The laboratory’s annually variable cost amounts to 1,874,369 RMB (264,286.03 USD), with personnel expenses accounting for about 93% of the budget. In comparison, consumables represent only 133,389 RMB (18,600 USD). Thus, the major financial burden arises not from laboratory consumables but from the significant investment in human capital.

Lab Variable Cost

3. Product Costs

The costs of producing E-coli Packs are included in annual lab variable costs, indicating that 1,874,369RMB (264,286.03 USD) are used to produce 456,250 litres of Bacterial Culture, with firms using 1 liter per day. The price and quantity will rise as we expand our company.

The total cost for a Premium-Level Microbial Remediators is 118,489.7RMB (16,540 USD) Most significant expenses include the large stainless steel water tanks 20,000 RMB (2,782.8 USD) and the 5-ton stainless steel mixing tank 24,000 RMB (3,343.2 USD).

The total cost for a Entry-Level Microbial Remediators is 39,942.3 RMB (5,570 USD)

The large stainless steel water tanks and the 5-ton stainless steel mixing tank are not included in this version, as the entry level water tank is an adjusted version of our product with assumptions of customers already owning 2 tanks.

Microbial Remediator Cost

Our pricing strategy will be a cost- up strategy, proposing 250,000RMB (34,817.50 USD) per set of Premium-Level Microbial Remediator, 85,000RMB ( 11,837.95 USD) per set of Entry-Level Microbial Remediator, and 500RMB (69.65 USD) per pack of modified E. coli. Each Premium-Level Microbial Remediator brings 13,151.1 RMB (1,832.10 USD) of profit, the Entry Level brings 45,057.7 RMB (6,277.20 USD) of profit, and each E. coli Pack brings 495RMB (68.95 USD) of profit. Our high profit is originated from our competitive pricing strategy and the high costs of other products in the market. It is worthy to note that we expect a pack of modified E. coli to be used each day treating 10 metric tonnes of water, therefore the revenue generated by these modified E. coli will be expected to increase incrementally as our customer habits are developed. We believe the demand for Cr(VI) contamination treatment in water to remain strong throughout the years following our product's introduction.

Figure 5 Break Even Analysis-2

Our E. coli, as our initiating product, will break even in 5 years. Their revenue will cover up the lab variable costs, lab fixed costs, and the costs used on reasearching and developing the E. coli. Our product does not begin with all the desired market shares, thus we refferred to another environmental treatment company's speed of gaining market shares (Xylem) in this graph and modified it to fit the current situation in order to predict our break even. We would need to sell 25000 E. coli packs to break even our costs, and we calculated that an initial investment ranging from 1,500k RMB (209,250 USD)-1,800k (251,100 USD) is ideal for us to initiate production, as it can cover up all expenses in the short term.

Figure 6 Break Even Analysis-3

Assuming that we only sell Premium- Level Microbial Remediators, our Microbial Remediator will break even in 1.8 years. This assumption is made on top of the foundation that our customer base and reputation has been established before this product is released. Reasonably estimating that we will recieve 19 customers on the first year and 2 more customers per year, all costs including the Microbial Remediator Variable costs, all bank loans (all bank loans are aimed towards the production and R&D of the Microbial Remediator), and additional R&D costs will be covered within 1.8 years. However, it is worth noting that not all customers will chose our Premium-Level-ed product, thus the final break even may vary between the time of break even with all Premium- Level and all Entry- Level.

Assuming that we only sell Entry-Level Microbial Remediators, our Microbial Remediator will break even in 2.6 years. All conditions above apply to this case too. Additionally, we reasonably estimate that at least 35 customers will automate their degradation tanks by buying our product and 4 more customers do so every year.

There is an increasing global market of industrial wastewater treatment, valued at about 135.7 billion RMB ($19.06 billion) and projected to be at 206.8 billion RMB ($28.95 billion) by 2032. The market is growing with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) at 5.4% due to stringent environmental regulations, increase need for sustainable solutions, and intensifying industrial activities. In China, the market for wastewater treatment equipment is at 23.18 billion RMB ($3.25 billion), anticipated to be at 34.9 billion RMB ($4.89 billion) by 2030 with 6.1% CAGR.  This broader water and wastewater treatment industry consists mainly of a significant market for purifying heavy metal contaminated water at 150 billion RMB ($21 billion), projected to be at 300 billion RMB ($42 billion) globally with 6.3% CAGR to 2033, while wastewater treatment systems in China for electroplating factories treating heavy metals that include chromium are at 21.4 billion RMB ($3 billion) with a market growth of 8.1% year by year, becoming a fast growing niche within China’s wastewater treatment sector.  This progression is driven by demands of heavy metal purifying from industries such as electroplating, leather tanning, and textile manufacturing, such industries being primary contributors to chromium contamination in water sources. Another reason is rooted in technological advancements in treatment methods. Such innovations include ion exchange, membrane filtration, and bioremediation, which are enhancing the efficiency and cost effectiveness of processes, constituting as heavy competitors for our products within the chromium removal market. As we shift into global markets in the future, countries in earlier industrializing stages will be our focus. Rapid industrial growth along with the increase of factories in these countries will mean a higher demand for industrial wastewater treatment technologies. Mexico’s industrial wastewater treatment market was valued at 2 billion RMB ($285.6 million) in 2024 and is projected to reach 2.6 billion RMB ($363.8 million) by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 4.2%. The same market in Brazil is projected to reach 24 billion RMB ($3.37 billion) by 2030, with a CAGR of 4.9%,  while Chile’s similar market generated a revenue of 1.5 billion RMB ($208.9 million) in 2024 and is expected to reach 2.66 billion RMB ($372.9 million) by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 6.6%. Southeast Asia leads the market, with its industrial water and wastewater treatment market (both industrial and municipal wastewater treatment sectors) valued at 129 billion RMB ($18.1 billion) in 2022 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.1%, reaching 237 billion RMB ($33.2 billion) by 2031.

The statistics above gathered into a list:

1. Global Industrial Wastewater Treatment
   1. Current market size: 135.7 billion RMB ($19.06 billion)
   2. Projected market size (2032): 206.8 billion RMB ($28.95 billion)
   3. CAGR: 5.4%
2. Global Heavy Metal Treatment
   1. Current market size: 150 billion RMB ($21 billion)
   2. Projected market size (2033): 300 billion RMB ($42 billion)
   3. CAGR: 6.3%
3. China Wastewater Treatment Market
   1. Current market size: 23.18 billion RMB ($3.25 billion)
   2. Projected market size (2030): 34.9 billion RMB ($4.89 billion)
   3. CAGR: 6.1%
4. China Heavy Metal Treatment
   1. Current market size: 21.4 billion RMB ($3 billion)
   2. Annual growth: 8.1%
5. Industrial Wastewater Treatment Markets in Selected Countries
   1. Mexico
      1. Current market: 2 billion RMB ($285.6 million)
      2. Projected market (2030): 2.6 billion RMB ($363.8 million)
      3. CAGR: 4.2%
   2. Brazil
      1. Projected market (2030): 24 billion RMB ($3.37 billion)
      2. CAGR: 4.9%
   3. Chile
      1. Current market: 1.5 billion RMB ($208.9 million)
      2. Projected market (2033): 2.66 billion RMB ($372.9 million)
      3. CAGR: 6.6%

Segmenting

Among the vast varieties of industries, our product is specifically aimed at industries that produce chemical waste. This would include industries in electroplating, tanning, textile dyeing, mining, chemical plants, and more. Because of the rising sustainability trend globally, these medium-to-large industries would be in need for cost reduction, sustainability compliance, long-term soil/water safety, and automated wastewater management. Geographically, our primary target consumers would be among the highly industrialized areas in China; Specifically, provinces like Hebei, Guangdong, and Jiangsu with strict policies on groundwater contamination. Beyond China, we aim to target emerging industries in developing countries; for example, with the prominence of the textile industries in South Asia, cost-effective wastewater treatment is great demand.

Targeting

Our primary target segments include newly emerging manufacturing industries with heavy metal waste water discharge such as chromium, cadmium, arsenic contamination. In addition, we aim to target medium-to-large enterprises, particularly those upgrading their manufacturing facilities, facing increasing regulatory pressure for wastewater treatment and sustainability reporting, and seeking an efficient solution to manage wastewater pollution. This would also include those with minimal human labor forces to spare for monitoring as our product provides automated monitoring. At the same time, industries of developing areas seeking cost-effective wastewater treatment solutions would be drawn to our product, as we provide an efficient, sustainable, and regulatory-compliant alternative to chemical and physical solutions.

Positioning

Though our product has a requires a major space for construction, it is advantageous in the long-run as our products will be cheaper and more eco-friendly. Our automated Microbial Remediator is equivalent to approximately 2.5 years of human labor in China completing the exact same tasks. Contrary to chemical and physical methods of remediation, microbial remediation does not risk second-time pollution, giving businesses security and confidence in a safe, sustainable, and long-term solution. Furthermore, we are a regulatory-compliant solution that helps businesses meet government environmental standards while enhancing their ESG profile. In sum, we are the most sustainable and cost-effective wastewater treatment solution, combining microbial bioremediation with automated hardware.

To further learn about how related stakeholders in this industry may influence our company, Porter’s Five Forces model is implemented for further analysis.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers (low)

The bargaining power of suppliers is low. Essential inputs include cloning kits, bacterial culture media, DNA synthesis services, laboratory consumables, and basic experimental equipment. These are widely available in a competitive global market with multiple suppliers which reduces dependency on any single source.

Bargaining Power of Buyers (high)

The bargaining power of buyers is moderate or high. Many companies already use established methods for example chemical precipitation (accounting for ~40% of chromium wastewater treatment, UNEP 2022). Thus this gives companies less incentive to switch to a biotech solution. Yet policies such as China's "Zero Discharge of Hazardous Wastewater" target for 2025 push industries to adopt more effective and innovative solutions.

Threat of New Entrants (low)

The threat of new entrants is low. Environmental remediation, especially for hexavalent chromium, is heavily regulated. Specialized licenses are required to enter this industry (for example, the HAZWOPER,DTSC/EPA permits in California). Obtaining licenses is a monetarily demanding (ranging from USD $50,000-$100,000+ in costs per year) and time consuming process, which deters casual entrants. Building a bioremediation pipeline (lab R&D, safety testing, biosafety approvals) can cost at least $500,000 - $2M upfront. Few new individuals posses both biotech expertise and enough funding for them to enter the market quickly. Furthermore, the global hexavalent chromium remediation market is about $1-1.5 B/year. While undoubtedly profitable, this market is still niche compared to pharmacy or general biotech. This lowers the incentive for generic biotech startup to order, since the market and payoff is smaller than, say, cancer drugs.

Threat of Substitutes (medium to high)

The main substitutes for our product include chemical reduction, ion exchange, and membrane filtration. Chemical reduction is widely used in plating and tannery industries. The cost of chemical reduction varies around $0.5-$1.5 per cubic meter of wastewater treated. Ion exchange is typically used to reduce the presence of hexavalent chromium in drinking water. Membrane filtration costs approximately $0.58 per cubic meter of water treatment, yet the construction cost varies from $400 million -1 billion. Therefore, the threat of substitutes is moderate to high because these established chemical and physical methods have already gained loyal customers and credibility in the remediation industry.

Rivalry Among Existing Competitors (medium to high)

Rivalry among existing competitors is moderate to high. Key players in the market include Veolia, the largest water service and environmental solutions provider globally and Xylem Inc., one of the largest pure play water technology firms. Other companies like SUEZ, Ecolab, Kurita, Pentair, Evoqua, Calgon Carbon and others also hold significant shares in wastewater treatment sectors. Despite their presence, we still have a significantly important niche in the market due to our advantage over price, automation, sustainability, and customization. The global industrial wastewater treatment services market is projected to grow at around 6.1% CAGR. Growing opportunities within the market exists along with high rivalry in this market.

Strengths

Our most prominent strengths is th affordability of our product, so our product costs lower than chemical/physical treatments in general. In addition, we provide integrated solutions, combining detection and degradation in a single workflow, a unique aspect of our product. Related fees around maintenance, infrastructure, and periodical checks will be covered within our post-sales services. Furthermore, our Microbial Remediator can undergo automatic operation with real-time monitoring, continuously detecting and degrading hexavalent chromium along with other heavy metals without manual intervention, reducing the need for labour and human error while increasing productivity and convenience. Finally, our solutions are safe and sustainable, using genetically engineered E. coli to reduce reliance on chemical treatments, which often generate chemical byproducts that can end up as secondary pollution.

Weaknesses

Our products faces a decent amount of avoidable weaknesses. As a genetically modified organism, the engineered bacterial may face risks originating from genetic mutations or recombination with native microbes that could disrupt the bacteria’s ability to degrade Cr(6+). While it converts toxic Cr(VI) to neutral Cr(III), the accumulated Cr(III) may persist in the environment if not treated properly. This may lead to the potential reverting of Cr (3+) back Cr(6+) by chance, or Cr(3+) entering the food chain and impacting human health. The development process of our project is time-consuming, labor-reliant, and capital-demanding. Deployment is challenging due to the need for both complex local assembly and expensive logistics fees as large objects comes with larger logistic fees. Long-term maintenance and repairs further add to operational expenses. Moreover, while the large physical size of the treatment system limits deployment in confined or remote areas. However, as long as our customers operate the machine with care and we gain the designated amount of investment from our pre- seed and seed rounds, concerns about money may be solved.

Opportunities

There are several opportunities that could help advance our product. To begin with, we can expand out target consumers into developing areas; rapid industrialization in Africa and Latin America increases the chromium and heavy metal pollution. As our product offers efficient treatment at a low cost, these industries in developing areas would need to acquire our product for environmental protection. Furthermore, as there is a rising demand for sustainable practices against harmful human pollution, more firms will follow this trend of implementing eco-friendly technologies. In the past 5 years, the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment released a series of laws regarding water pollution and control, serving to protect and improve the environment. This also suggests the tighter regulations regarding discharge of water pollutants, like Chromium, into the environment. The trend of environment awareness provides the perfect opportunity for our product to thrive in the market, both domestically and internationally. Our own opportunities include making more revenues by developing new bacteria and bonding our new bacteria to our Microbial Re-mediator, to provide more convenience for our customers and expand the market for our new bacteria. A potential opportunity regarding marketing is that our Microbial Remediator’s reputation may increase as we find more customers, thus eventually the market shares we gain will increase over time. Corroborating with other firms is also a significant opportunity to our product.

Threats

There are several threats that our product currently face in the market. First, regulatory and policy risks. China’s biosafety rules impose strict licensing and approval for any GMO (genetically modified organisms) to enter the market. From a field trip to WEIPU Testing Technology (Suzhou), we learned that our product, specifically the detection bacterium, need to pass the CMA test too. Delay or restrictions on GMO applications in wastewater treatment could delay product release time by months or years. Moreover, there is significant pressure from other competitors. Chemical precipitation accounts for ~40-50% of global chromium wastewater treatment (UNEP 2022), ion exchange and membrane filtration holds the remaining 30%. Companies or industries that already have an existing solution to chromium wastewater treatment might not be willing to change a method. Furthermore, there is market acceptance and trust issues. A 2023 Pew survey shows that 48% of respondents in China were concerned about GMO safety, which could reduce company willingness to adopt our product.

Strategy

We intend to use a WO strategy. As we will try to fulfill our weakness with potential opportunities in the market. High logistics costs is a substantially significant weakness of our firm, thus we intend to use the opportunity of long term- corroborations of logistics firms to decrease our costs and potentially increasing our reputation in the market. Corroborating with firms such as heat-triggered apoptosis gene-producing firms (iGEM-team e.cooli and their product) may also further solve the problem of function disruption originating. DNA from the last group of bacteria may transfer to the working group of bacteria. However, if the apoptosis starts in the last group of cells, the DNA are broken down and function disruption may be avoided. Furthermore, if apoptosis genes are incorporated, our Microbial Remediator usage costs decreases because the second round of UV light operation is no longer required. Our E-coli can be killed by simply raising the temperature of the water tanks from 32 Degree Celsius to 40 degreese celsius. This will save energy for our customers and decrease global warming at the same time, decreasing the weakness of hard deployment in remote areas where energy is scarce.

Price

Figure 7 Comparing Metrics about Price

Figure 8 Comparing Metrics about Price

In terms of adsorption and filtration-related products, our Crouton: Ecoli bacterial agent is priced at $69 per package. Calgon Carbon’s activated carbon products range between $69.99 and $170 per package, and SUEZ ultrafiltration membranes cost $17-35 per square meter. Our Ecoli bacterial agent uses biological transformation to target Cr(VI) removal, differing from Calgon Carbon’s physical adsorption and SUEZ’s membrane filtration. When it comes to long-term use, our product doesn’t need frequent replacement like activated carbon, and it avoids the high material costs of ultra filtration membranes.

For integrated water treatment systems, our Crouton: Microbial Remediator system is priced at $3425. The Pentair LineGuard UF-100 ultra filtration system costs $8,999, and Veolia 4-inch reverse osmosis membrane elements are $200 each. Our MR system combines Cr(VI) detection and microbial remediation. Priced at ¥25,000, it is about 60% cheaper than Pentair’s UF system, which only focuses on filtration, while still providing active pollution reduction. Compared to Veolia’s reverse osmosis membranes, which are a single component for desalination, our all-in-one system eliminates the need for additional filtration or neutralization equipment.

Technology

The biggest players in the market include Veolia(the biggest water service and environment solutions provider internationally), and Xylem Inc., one of the biggest pure water technology firms.

Provided by Veolia is their patented fluidized bed reactor process, named MetClean™, that removes heavy metals--including chromium, arsenic, cadmium, and more--from water. It achieves up to 99% removal in a single step, producing fine-grained granules that contain the pollutants and reduce sludge volume by roughly 90%. Besides their hardware, Veolia deploys smart and integrated treatment systems such as CISPEO/Hubgrade to optimize biological and chemical wastewater treatment processes.Veolia’s strength lies in scalable, industrial-grade physical and chemical remediation systems, enhanced by digital monitoring and smart operation.

In collaboration with Evoqua, Xylem employs mobile, modular systems for treating Cr(VI)-contaminated groundwater. Their approach includes: Reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III), pH adjustment for precipitation, multi-stage clarification, filtration, and adsorption using sand, activated carbon, and zeolite, automatic sludge dewatering for safer handling. The strength of Xylem lies in their ability to offer flexible, deployable solutions for site-specific chromium remediation, particularly through mobile modular systems—a strength in emergency or remote applications—along with robust monitoring and industrial dewatering tools.

Other competitors in the market are as listed below:

1. SUEZ: Advanced membrane bioreactors and chemical treatment systems for industrial wastewater.
2. Ecolab: Water treatment chemicals and monitoring platforms for industrial plants.
3. Kurita: Chemical conditioning agents and biological treatment enhancers for water and wastewater.
4. Pentair: Filtration and separation systems, including activated carbon and ultrafiltration.
5. Evoqua: Heavy metal removal units and mobile water treatment systems, including chromium treatment.
6. Calgon Carbon: Activated carbon adsorption technologies for removing contaminants from water.

Figure 9 Competitive Analysis

As mentioned in 2.1 product description, the Microbial Remediator is an integrated wastewater treatment system that combines specialized hardware with engineered bacteria to efficiently remove toxic Cr(VI) from industrial effluents. Its compact, modular design enables flexible deployment within existing facilities, operating through an automated three-stage process. The system requires minimal manual intervention and offers real-time remote monitoring, providing a reliable and sustainable solution for chromium contamination challenges.

Price

Our pricing strategy is centered on providing cost-effective remediation treatment to industries in need of relieving wastewater pollution. The bacteria and the hardware in the first purchase comes in a package and for future additional services bacteria is provided seperately. The products are priced separately as well, with 500 RMB ($70.15) per pack being the price for the amount of bacteria needed for one day of remediating and 250,000 RMB ($35,075.00) for the hardware and after-sales service.

Our advantage is that our products are currently in trend with a growing market, potentially increasing dramatically as demand for sustainable solutions tightens with government regulations. Compared to the other solutions, which include chemical and physical treatment, microbial remediation offers the most affordable and effective solution at a lower cost, making us the optimal choice for industries with wastewater treatment demands. Additionally, we provide long-term after-sales service with tight collaboration to ensure our clients receive ongoing technical support, system maintenance, and performance optimization, ultimately fostering long-term partnerships and customer loyalty. Through these advantages, we can successfully capture a larger share of the market, particularly in China, where there are large amounts of factories with chemical waste and tight regulations regarding water pollution.

Place

Considering the high cost of opening physical stores, we will primarily trly on direct online distribution channels. Companies and institutions can order our engineered strains and microbial reagents from our official website. To maintain strain viability during transportation, we will use professional cold-chain delivery services.

In addition to biological products, we also provide the Microbial Remediator. Our manufacturing facility is located in Anhui. The factory will not only produce microbial reagents but also serve as the assembly hub for our hardware machine. To optimize transportation and reduce risks of damage, the Microbial Remediatory will be manufactured in modular components in the factory. These components will be shipped to our customer sites, where our technical team will assist with on-site installation.

Promotion

As a financially feasible environmental synthetic biology product, the key to promotion is building intellectual credibility and a stable customer base. Thus, our promotion strategy includes:

1. Establish official website and online platform

Our website will clearly present the working principle of our project, project progress, safety certifications, and real-life application cases. This transparent communication will boost confidence among our customers.

2. Scientific journals and conferences

Publishing research outcomes in synthetic biology, environmental engineering, biotechnology journals and presenting at academic conferences will help us expand academic and industrial recognition.

3. On Site Demonstrations

By actively collaborating with larger enterprises through providing them with a year long trial along and a tour in our company, demonstrating our product to them and utilizing their reputation to promote our product within the market. Meanwhile, publishing the case results (such as the pollutant reduction efficiency), showcasing the effectiveness of our product and attract more clients.

4. Free Trials for Customers

To address customer hesitancy and establish early adoption, we will provide free one-year trials to selected customers. This will help us build a stable customer array that directly experiences the benefits of the Microbial Remediator.

Industrial Enterprises

From an interview, it is learned that wastewater treatment plants have the ability to refuse the treatment of severely contaminated waters discharges from companies. We aim to provide such companies with the most affordable and accessible solution that can purify the chromium contaminated waters to the extent where further treatment methods are possible, such as being able to be sent to wastewater treatment plants. Our purifying procedures mean that companies can avoid fines related to heavily contaminated emissions through the most cost-effective approach. Such companies are mostly comprised of traditional electroplating and metal finishing companies requiring hexavalent chromium corrosion resistance and decorative coating, generating high chromium wastewater, as well as the leather tanning industries using chromium salts to stabilize leather and the textile dyeing/printing industries using chromium-based dyes. In addition, less severe wastewater generators include chromite mining/ processing emitting Cr(III) rich wastewater, with risks of Cr(VI) contamination if oxidation occurs, along with heating power plants, where wastewater from boilers/ash handling may contain chromium from corrosion. These industries are also able to incorporate our practices into their integrated treatments aimed at multiple contaminants.

Governmental Use

Direct use for governments in open waters is not advised, as E. coli contamination is inevitable with our purification methods. However, we will collaborate with governments in the future, especially those in areas of earlier industrialization stages. We will act as a contractor for such governments, ensuring adoption across local industries.

Centralized Wastewater Treatment Plants

Centralized wastewater treatment plants handle large volumes of wastewater with heavy metal contaminants using widely adopted methods such as ion exchange, chemical precipitation, adsorption, electrochemical methods, and membrane filtration. Our chromium purification devices could enhance their treatment processes through consolidation: either in the pre-treatment stage to prevent overload on subsequent treatment stages, or by implementing our devices as post-treatment polishing to help ensure chromium levels are lower than reuse standards. Our devices can also be deployed in decentralized wastewater plants to reduce the need for extensive infrastructure.

The foremost benefit of our product is its affordability, convenience, customization and sustainability. After thorough interviews conducted by our team were done, we realized that the market price for heavy metal cleanage costs 400,000 RMB ($56,120.00) on average. By contrast, our products costs only 250,000 RMB ($35,075.00), significantly more affordable than the majority of the current technologies. Not only does our product clears the wastewater of harmful substances, it does not risk secondary pollution. Contrary to chemical and physical remediation methods, Microbial Remediation offers the most sustainable solution to address groundwater and soil pollution. This ensures that the remediation process is carried out with minimal harm to the environment at relatively lower costs. Along with the government's current efforts both politically and legally to improve the environment and lighten industrial pollution, our product is in the best interest of industries' efforts to align with government's current regulation, providing effective solution to a severe problem. Furthermore, our Microbial Remediator hardware is completely automated with real-time monitoring, requiring minimal human labor, allowing industries to minimize labor costs with with greater efficiency, consistency, and reliability in the remediation process. In addition to the superior quality and operational efficiency of our product, our company provides thorough after-sales service, facilitating industries in the construction of our hardware in their respective factories.

Our main business collaborators encompass high-end chemical manufacturers, who will be our direct users, needing better remediation technologies to improve their sustainability reporting. This integration of our systems into existing treatment lines will direct us towards an industrial scale as well as strengthen our reputation with regulators and investors, which means validating ourselves within the market. Similar partnerships also include governments whom we will be contractors to. Our other major business collaborators are pollutant testing companies. They can create a bundled solution by pairing with our microbial remediator, verifying the effectiveness of our technology using existing monitoring devices, thus further adding our credibility. These testing companies work with a range of industries, such as manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, meaning that collaboration with them could connect us to broader markets. Furthermore, we will work closely with our material suppliers for our treatment system, the transportation companies responsible for delivering our products to target companies, as well as companies in control of the installation of our bioremediators within the factories of our customers.

Figure 10 Business Model Canvas

Figure 11 Milestones and Timelines

Apart from existing technologies, research and development on new technologies such as new degradation bacteria and Microbial Remediator pollutant recycle system will also be an important aspect in our further development. Our company will try to produce our own crucial components making up the Microbial Remediator to decrease risks of suppliers and variable costs in the future.

‌Policies

A key issue we need to overcome is the GMO environmental approval in China. Without the approval from domestic regulatory authorities, we might not be able to get the license to apply our biocontainment measures. In order to conteract, we plan to take the initiative to communicate and consult with the relevant departments of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to understand the specific data requirements and concerns for the approval and incorporate the relevant requirements into the subsequent research and development.

Market Recognition and Promotion

Our team plans to launch our E. coli before the Microbial Remediator, which is an act that increases our recognition in the market before launching our more input-demanding products. This choice may help us locate potential customers of the Microbial Remediator and provide tolerence to change potentially inefficient aspects existing in our product or firm before inputs are used in a massive scale. Meanwhile, we will launch an official website and provide merchandises such as dolls and headwear printed with the Crouton mascot, aiming to increase the exposure and popularity of our products in the public eye and potential customers, boosting our sales.

Price Management

Our team has taken into account most of the possible capital consumption, including laboratory rent, production cost, research and development funds, and other possible funds. After taking all the above factors and the market price into comprehensive consideration, we have set a price for that is much lower than the market price (65,692RMB ($8,999)) for our product (25,000RMB ($3,425)). At the same time, we have also evaluated the possible financial risks, such as withdraw of capital or are fund shortage. The main solutions to deal with these risks are: adjusting to a research and development site with a better cost performance and devoting more resources to marketing to make up for the shortage of funds.

At the frontier of biotechnology, our company was founded by a dynamic cohort of 24 students from Shanghai High School International Division, specializing in various fields of study including synthetic biology, entrepreneurship, business management, engineering, programming, and design. We are passionate to develop biological methods on reducing toxic chromium in the entire aquatic system in a less costly and efficient way. As a team, we possess the essential skills of team collaboration, scientific research, information integration, and design.

Primary influencing stakeholders are the government agencies such as the Ministry of Water resources, environmental protection administration. Through collaborative communication with the professionals from these agencies, we are able to learn the limitations existing in the product design and final implementation, which can be further improved. We also recognized the importance of engaging secondary stakeholders including experts focused on water contamination, MARA, members of animal protection association, sewer workers, individuals whose health have been impacted by waste water, heavy industry workers who face occupational exposure, and students have high level of interests but lower power of influence. Exploring and understanding each group’s level of interests and power of influence may allow us to determine our target consumers, formulate long-term business goals,and build cooperative relationships that support sustainable project integration and viability.

Political and Legal

Our product and business concept directly aligns with China's national strategy of shifting from end-of-pipe treatment to pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction throughout the entire process. According to 2024-2025 Action Plan for Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction, the discharge concentration limit of hexavalent chromium in the wastewater of existing enterprises shall not exceed 0.5m ³ /t of product, and 0.1m ³ /t of product for new enterprises. Thus, in order to meet the national standards, factories that produce wastewater containing heavy metals have an urgent need of water treatment, creating a guaranteed market our product. The advantages of our products in cleaning industrial wastewater can be continuously and steadily developed with political and economic support in future years.

Environmental

The combination of ChrR and YieF is a major advantage over many other microbial systems that produce harmful intermediates. Our product prevents damaging the cells themselves and causing collateral ecological damage. This unique mechanism makes our product more eco-friendly with less toxicity on the long run.

Our E. coli is well-understood and easily modified. Our original idea allows future iterations to be engineered targeting multiple heavy metals, creating a powerful for complex industrial waste sites and purpose a creative way to solve the problem of heavy metal pollution.

Economic

The broad pH and temperature tolerance of our enzymes (ChrR and YieF) allows the engineered bacteria to function effectively in diverse and fluctuating environmental conditions, leading to more reliable and long-lasting remediation. This means that the durability of our products is guaranteed.

Our technology transforms the pollutant into a stable, low-toxicity form that precipitates in the water. This mechanism significantly reduces the risk of the contaminant plume migrating over time. For a responsible party, our product serves as a permanent solution rather than a containment strategy, drastically reducing the need for decades of costly monitoring and maintenance for a long period of time.

As policies such as “Zero Direct Discharge Zone” expand, the cost of not treating wastewater will soar due to fines and penalties. Our product offers the industry an economical and effective way to achieve compliance and protect them from future regulatory risks. Once our biological solution is established, it may utilize resources more effectively and be less susceptible to fluctuations in raw material prices compares to physical or chemical solutions, thereby reducing long-term operating costs.

Political and Legal

The commercial deployment biological products faces an extremely stringent and time-consuming regulatory pathway in virtually every country, which may lead to legal challenges, regardless of our technical efficacy. In order to minimize the risk, our team conducts strict pilot-scale tests in both closed and simulated natural environments to comprehensively assess the product's impact on indigenous microorganisms and long-term stability. We also plan to cooperate with regulatory organizations such as WHO as well as the government to acquire necessary business permission.

Environmental

E. coli, if not sterilized, may be released to contaminant the environment, disrupting local microbial ecology. However, our team designed a dual sterilization procedure for our clients so that the possibility of E. coli leaking is reduced to minimum to ensure its environmental friendliness.

Economic

Through market research and cost estimation, our products costs are 40% lower than traditional treatment, and with our more sustainable methodology, we provide a feasible watertreatment solution for enterprises. Meanwhile, we have thoroughly understood the relevant policies and determined the target customer range (for details, see Market Analysis).

SDG 6 Clean Water And Sanitation

The core objective of our product is to provide companies with an efficient, convenient, and affordable water treatment solution, improving water quality and enhancing the overall water health of local residents.

SDG 14 Life Below Water

Our team designed this device with the original intention of protecting and restoring the ecosystem. We also hope that our consideration of the natural environment can influence more people through our community education activities and promote people's awareness of protecting water resources.

SDG 15 Life On Land

Heavy metal elements in water can affect animals and plants, including humans, that take water as an essential material for life. Our product does not only focus on the biodiversity habitats of underwater creatures, but also take into account all plants and animals that may come into contact with freshwater ecosystem.

SDG 8 Decent Work And Economic Growth

Through our product, workers who have daily contact with water resources, including factory workers and farmers, can access cleaner water sources, thereby enhancing the safety level of their working environment. Our product, though indirectly, guarantees labor rights.

SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, And Infrastructure

Our team evaluated the risks that might affect sustainable development to prevent problems such as insufficient funds and materials in the later stage of the project (for details, see Risk Management). Meanwhile, we call on more enterprises and research and development parties to pay attention to the water treatment issues that we are concerned about and form a consensus among society and enterprises.

SDG 12 Responsible Consumption And Production

Our team has taken the initiative to assume the responsibility of treating water and protecting the environment, providing enterprises and factories with a new efficient solution for wastewater containing heavy metal chromium.

SDG 2 Zero Hunger

Removing chromium (VI) from water can ensure that consumers will not come into contact with contaminated food during subsequent food production and daily use of water, maximizing food safety and minimizing any hidden danger.

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Our products can effectively reduce heavy metal pollution in water, thereby ensuring people’s water safety and reducing diseases and deaths caused by polluted water. Our team hopes to realize our vision for health and well-being by developing and designing this product and launching it to the market.